


but they never stood in the dark with you love

by thispapermoon



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hecate Hardbroom is a lil bondage bat, Hicsqueak, It was supposed to be just smut, Pippa Pentangle is a pent-angel, Smut, Sweetness, Two witches in love, but here we are, flashback to their youth, if you are into Hecate's neck in the Bat Girl dress, this got way more sentimental and sweet, well so is Pippa, well this took an interesting turn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thispapermoon/pseuds/thispapermoon
Summary: Intensity is Hecate, nose inches from her cauldron, fingers causing ingredients to spin and fly, beholden to her every command.Intensity is Hecate, nose inches from Pippa’s skin, fingers causing her to spin and fly, beholden to her every command.****Pippa takes a few minutes to reflect on words that describe Hecate Hardbroom.





	but they never stood in the dark with you love

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Hi. This was supposed to be a short semi-smutty piece because I can't help but obsess about the [nape of Hecate Hardbroom's neck](https://always-la-belle-epoque.tumblr.com/post/170815114572/i-was-like-highly-seduced-by-hecates-back-in) as it was reveled to us during Bat Girl. 
> 
> But then Pippa had to get all damn sentimental on me and it was beyond my control after that. Really it was. 
> 
> Title is from the Gloria Estefan cover of Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me aka the sexiest song that ever happened. 
> 
> I need to go lay down.

It’s almost ridiculous, Pippa thinks, as she pauses in the doorway of Hecate’s chambers, fingers still resting on the door knob. Ridiculous that even after all this time, the mere sight of Hecate makes her heart beat in double time.

She wouldn’t change it though. The delicious tingle down her spine as she takes in Hecate standing before her desk, back to the door, reading a school memo as light pours in from the window beyond. It catches the dark hair piled on her head and makes it shine, and Pippa smiles at the way her ears stick out just a little and filter the light, turning them the smallest bit translucent. _Adorable_ is not a word she would ever use in front of Hecate. _Adored_ , maybe. But still, in her own private musing, it fills her with a warmth. A simple joy brought by noticing even the smallest of details, all the little things that make Hecate, well, Hecate.

“Enter and shut the door or return to the corridor, Pippa. If you lurk any longer in that threshold there’s a good chance you’ll be mistaken as a school cat.”

Like the way Hecate always seems to know it’s her without turning, for instance.

Smiling, Pippa does as instructed and shuts the door before crossing the room and sliding her arms around Hecate from behind.  

“What are you reading, Hiccup?”

In the years since they parted, Hecate’s grown into herself. Crimson streaked red lips and sleek dark dresses that hug her figure just so. It’s as if she’s saying to the world _dare to look but dare not touch_ , Pippa muses. She rests a chin on Hecate’s shoulder and pulls her more closely against her front. _And now I get to do both_. It still amazes her, to have this. To get to be so bold as to wrap her arms around Hecate and not have her flinch, or turn her away, or to wake up and have it only been a dream.

“Proposed timetable for Fourth Form examinations.” Pippa can feel the words rumble against her hands where they wrap about Hecate’s waist and it makes her lips turn up even more. “And what, pray tell, are you up to?”

Humming a bit, Pippa nuzzles her neck, leaning in to press a gentle kiss right where Hecate’s hairline ends behind her ear, before dipping her head and smiling against the dark fabric of Hecate’s high collared dress.

“I should think that would be obvious.”

Hecate merely flips the page she’s reading over to start on the reverse, but she relaxes further into Pippa’s touch and Pippa rubs her nose against Hecate’s shoulder.

“I like the way you smell.”

She can feel Hecate smile at that even though she can’t see her face and the paper remains held before her. She bends her head a little to read more closely, exposing the nape of her neck. Pippa feels warmth spread through her at the sight.

Leaning up she places small kisses down from her hairline, withdrawing a hand from around Hecate’s waist so that she can hook her fingers into the fabric of her collar and pull it down a bit further to reach more skin.

It doesn’t bother her that Hecate continues reading, not when she sighs the way she does at Pippa’s touch, her free hand coming up rest on the remaining arm Pippa has wrapped around her. She smiles against her neck and feels Hecate shiver. Rests her forehead between Hecate’s shoulder blades, and breathes her in and out, content to be close.

 _Tender_. She thinks suddenly. That’s the word that sums Hecate up. Has always summed her up. Beneath the hard edges is a heart so trembling, so vulnerable and fragile that Hecate has closed it up, shut it in, hidden it behind doctrine as rigid as her spine. But it’s there, Pippa knows, as she brushes her thumb against Hecate’s stomach.

It’s always been there.

It takes her back to their childhood. To her second year at school. To the day when Hecate Hardbroom, Head of Year, straight-laced and no-nonsense, a girl disinclined to participate in small talk or socialization of any kind - and Pippa had tried, oh how she’d tried - had stopped abruptly while leading their line to chanting class. Had suddenly instructed them to go ahead without her instead.

_There’d been a muttering of confusion from their form, a few laughs, a whisper of “I bet she forgot the broomstick that’s always up her -” which ended in a yelp as Pippa jabbed an elbow into Tina Thornstone’s side._

_Leaving Hecate staring at the ground, head hung low, they gradually dispersed across the courtyard. All except for Pippa._

_Hecate hunched, her body angling away from her - a clear message stay back. But Pippa stepped forward anyway, concern on her tongue, before noticing the small baby bird that lay just before Hecate’s feet, it’s neck bent at an unnatural angle._

_“Oh poor thing,” she breathed. Hecate’s shoulders jerked up and down in a shrug and Pippa suddenly realized she was holding back tears._

_“Hecate?” The bell rang and Hecate bowed into herself even further, long fingers darting up to hastily brush her cheeks._

_“You better go, you’ll be late.”_

_“So will you.” Again Hecate shrugged before crossing her arms tightly around herself and staring down at the bird. “It’s just so young.”_

_And Pippa blinked in surprise at the admission. And at the pain in Hecate’s voice._

_“Here -” She rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a pale pink handkerchief, muttered a duplication spell before offering one of the two to Hecate. “Go on, it’s clean, I promise.” Hecate’s lips turned up ever so slightly and she’d reached out and taken it dedicatedly between her fingertips, turning further away to dry her eyes._

_“I saw some lovely plumbago blooming just over there during break yesterday.” She crouched down beside the fragile body and pointed towards the east side of the courtyard where a small garden had been planted. “Do you think that would make a nice place for a burial?”_

_“A burial?” Hecate turned back towards her and for the first time Pippa realized her eyes were more deep brown than black, though at the moment slightly red rimmed. At Pippa’s nod,  Hecate’s posture relaxed somewhat._

_“I suppose that would be adequate.” She stooped down next to Pippa, watching as she gently, very gently wrapped the hanky around the little body. Their hands brushed slightly as Pippa placed the baby bird into Hecate’s open palm and they both flushed a little._

_“Just over there,” she’d whispered, jesturing again. They’d risen and crossed the courtyard in silence, though Pippa caught Hecate glancing at her from the corner of her eye more than once. Not that she’d been looking._

_Together they’d knelt before the pale blue flowers and Pippa dug her fingers into the cold dirt, hollowing out a pocket in the ground._

_“I can use a spell for that,” Hecate muttered. “No sense ruining your nails.” She’d placed the emphasis a little unkindly and Pippa felt herself bush._

_“It just doesn’t seem right, to do it by magic.” She retorted, ears burning. “Somethings just need to be done - I don’t know - they just need -”_

_But Hecate simply watched her fail to grasp at words, a peculiar look on her face._

_“No, you’re right,” She said slowly, her eyes trained on Pippa’s face, as if she’d only just seen her for the first time. “It does seem rather a more proper way to go about it.”_

_Gently, she lay the bird beside her knee and her hands joined Pippa’s in the earth until they’d created a deep enough opening and Hecate placed the bird carefully within._

_“I hope it’s alright - your other handkerchief, I mean -”_

_“Quite. And you can keep yours too, if we’re going to be friends.” She watched as Hecate’s face fell open in frank surprise._

_“Friends?”_

_“That’s right.” Pippa scooped up the fresh fresh dirt and carefully brought it back into grave, fingers brushing Hecate’s now and again ask her hands moved to help. When it was done, they both sat back on their heels._

_“I suppose - I suppose we should say something?” Voice uncertain, even to her own ears._

_Hecate’s head bowed again, shoulders coming up. “At my mother’s funeral they - “ She broke off and Pippa caught up her hand before she’d thought much about it, their eyes meeting for a moment before Hecate turned her face down again, blinking rapidly._

_“Maybe a small spell for peace?” She brought their joined hands down to rest on the soil._

_“Sweet sparrow, be free in joyous flight,_  
_Journey on with newborn sun upon your breast,_  
_And be not lost in endless night,  
_ _As we send you to eternal rest.”_

_She finished and released Hecate’s hand, reaching up pluck a flower to lay upon the mound, fussing with it until it sat at a pleasing angle against the soil so Hecate could take a moment with her handkerchief again._

_They knelt there quietly for a few moments before Hecate sniffed and straighten, “We best return before they look for us.” But she’d reached out a hand and pulled Pippa up off the ground, giving her that same considering look._

_“Where did you learn that spell?” She hadn't released her hand and Pippa flushed. “I - well - I just made it up.”_

_“You made it up?” At Hecate’s flabbergasted look, Pippa raised and lowered her shoulders feeling suddenly awkward._

_“I guess I just do that sometimes? I always have.”_

_For a moment she had a distinct impression that Hecate wanted to say something, but instead she’d dropped Pippa’s hand and nodded to the school._

_“Better go back up.”_

_They’d headed back side by side, and when Chanting Mistress had scolded them about their tardy attendance and their muddy palms, Hecate simply raised her chin and told her that she’d dropped her mother’s ring in the mud and Pippa had been kind enough to help her search._

_The class whispered and stared as they’d taken their seats together, but Mistress let them off with only a few hundred lines apiece. And they’d been side by side ever since. Until -_

Pippa startles as Hecate turns in her arms and brings her hands to her waist, the memo vanished into air.

“Where did you go, Pipsqueak? I was asking you if you’d like to go up to Swindler’s Point and gather some of that luminescent lichen next Saturday. But it seems you were on quite the trip to fairyland.”

An eyebrow angles upwards at her silence and Pippa shakes her head a bit to clear it.

“I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“The day we became friends.”

Hecate’s eyebrows rise higher but her eyes go soft. “Were you now.”

Untwining an arm from around Hecate she brings it up to rest above her heart instead. Feels where it beats against her fingers, steadily, and then less steadily as Pippa leans up and kisses her, tongue brushing, lips gentle.

Hecate’s fingers tighten on her hips and Pippa’s mind wanders back to her original thoughts as they slowly kiss. _Tender_. Underneath this jumpy and snappish exterior is a pounding wayward heart filled with longing and passion and intensity -

 _Intensity._ That’s another word, she thinks, breaking the kiss.

Pulling back she observes how dark Hecate’s eyes have become, shivering at the same moment heat courses through her. For a moment they stand, nose to nose, Hecate’s head bowed slightly to meet her own, breathing each other in.

And then Hecate slowly, slowly, drags a hand up her side, over the rise of her breast, trails her fingers along her throat until she’s taken Pippa’s chin between her fingers to tilt it up. And there it is, the hot, pulsing intensity that nearly makes the air shimmer between them.

Intensity is Hecate, nose inches from her cauldron, fingers causing ingredients to spin and fly, beholden to her every command.  Intensity is Hecate, nose inches from Pippa’s skin, fingers causing her to spin and fly, beholden to her every command. And Pippa gasps a bit at the way Hecate’s looking at her, the way her red lips quirk up just slightly, the knowing glint in her eye.

Pippa’s seen her harness absolute concentration for her potions, for her pupils, for her work, for anxiety, control, and the restraint of emotion. And while Hecate has always been a thorough, precise, deliberate person, Pippa reflects, shuddering as Hecate lifts her chin even higher and brings her in for a bruising kiss, this - _this -_ triangulation of those qualities with her at their very epicenter is something different entirely.

Something she didn’t even dare to dream about.  

Not until a month or so ago when they’d been a part for a rather long stretch, and at their reunion, Hecate had moved above her on the bed, her usual shyness vanished as if by spell work.

She’d captured Pippa’s mouth with her own and pressed her rather firmly into the bed before pulling back to hold her gaze. And there it was - that something new. A form of intimate intensity that had Pippa reeling and coming apart beneath Hecate’s touch far more quickly than either expected, leaving them both panting and far from sated.

Hecate spins her abruptly and pushes her back onto the desk without breaking the kiss and Pippa finds her hands scrabbling to grip at Hecate’s shoulders, legs coming up to wrap about her waist as Hecate guides her skirt up with a cool and steady hand.

And yet she’s still Hecate, this new emboldened variation. There’s still utter tenderness behind her eyes. She still trembles when Pippa leans in tugs her collar down once more to place wet, hot kisses down her neck before sucking on the pulse point behind her ear. Trembles when Pippa says _I love you_. Trembles when she reaches up and undoes the high knot upon her head and winds dark hair between her fingers, tugging her closer.

She still has a fragile baby bird in her heart, Pippa thinks, as Hecate vanishes her dress with a wave and turns shy just for a moment, just as she always does, until Pippa nods and the heat returns to her eyes.

There are more words, Pippa thinks, as she feels Hecate move against her. Words to describe Hecate. _Hard lines and soft edges._ She jerks as Hecate slides down to her knees before the desk and tugs her forward to place open mouthed kisses up the inside of each thigh.

_Cautious._

_Circumspect._

_Conservative._

Until she isn’t.

Until she’s moving her mouth against Pippa and Pippa’s pulling at her hair and calling out for her and clutching at her, cupping the nape of her neck, writhing against the desk until whole galaxies unspool within her.

Until Hecate is looking up at her with those dark eyes - suddenly wide, suddenly needy - and Pippa’s sliding off the desk on trembling legs and pushing her back onto the floor, rolling with her as she simultaneously transfers them and vanishes Hecate’s garments. Presses her down into the smokey gray sheets of the bed, covers her with her body, slides their bare skin warmly, achingly, together.

To reassure. To reward. And soon, oh so soon, to relieve.

She kisses Hecate, kisses her and kisses her and kisses her. Sucks on her bottom lip and drags just her fingertips up and down her side, coaxing little gasping breaths from her until she’s shuddering beneath her, wanting and so thoroughly Pippa’s that it moves Pippa nearly to tears each and every time.

And Pippa, though playful and gentle mainly, can be deliberate, too. Can be precise and thorough when she needs to be. Can make up spells and make up schools, or can make Hecate Hardbroom come apart with just her tongue and clever fingers, eyes locked together until it’s just too much and Hecate’s body bows, Pippa’s name upon her lips.

It’s a good match, she thinks, as she gathers Hecate close against her. Plants a thousand butterfly kisses against her cheek and upturned mouth. Let’s Hecate entwine their fingers and bring them to rest against her naked stomach. And Pippa can still feel the way the blood rushes there, just below her ribs, knows pleasure is still coursing through them both.

 _Hard lines and soft edges_ , she thinks once more.

_Tender and intense._

And Hecate. Just Hecate.

They fall asleep entwined.


End file.
